


Orange is Red Brought Nearer to Humanity

by DoreyG



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alien Biology, M/M, Orange Slime, Trapped in a Broken Spaceship, Unexpected Kindness, punctured lung
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24258637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoreyG/pseuds/DoreyG
Summary: "Zim," a familiar, incredibly annoying, voice hissed. "Zim, wake up."
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37
Collections: Writing Rainbow Make Up Round





	Orange is Red Brought Nearer to Humanity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).



"Zim," a familiar, incredibly annoying, voice hissed. "Zim, wake up."

"Gnarrrrrgh," he said, which he felt was a perfectly reasonable response under the circumstances. And then bolted upright, wheezing as he remembered the situation that they - thanks to the awful, smelly Dib creature - were in. "I am awake! I am alive! I am ready-! _Silence_! Who is yelling?"

"It's you, Zim. You're the one who is yelling," Dib, the familiar and incredibly annoying voice in the flesh, said wearily. "Which is quite unwise, given that I think you pierced a lung when you set this thing off."

"I am fine!" He declared, and sprung to his feet. And then, a moment later when he'd immediately collapsed back to his knees: "I am acceptable! It would be foolish to worry, Dib Creature, I have three lungs and only one of them was wounded. I will survive-! What do you mean I set this off?"

"What do you mean you have three lungs?" Dib, ever incapable of grasping the vital points of life, demanded with narrowed eyes. "I've been studying you for years, I never noticed you had three lungs."

"It was you that pressed the button, Dib Smell, not me. It was you that caused the problem-!"

"You have two lungs. I _know_ that you have two lungs, all my scans showed two lungs-!"

"If you had just sat there, and _allowed_ yourself to be kidnapped like a normal human, obedient for the glory of Zim-! "

There was a loud screech of metal, that echoed worryingly throughout the otherwise deathly silent ship. For once, they both heeded the danger and fell quiet. Stared at each other in mute, wide-eyed silence as they waited to see if an explosion was imminent.

"Kidnapped like a normal human, huh?" Dib asked wryly, after about a minute had passed without a sudden and painful death. Somehow he seemed less annoying than usual, more genuinely thoughtful than trying to prove a point.

"All of your scans, _huh_?" He mimicked Dib's tone sharply, but couldn't help a pained sigh a moment later as the situation forcibly sunk into him again. "We do not have the _time_ for this, Dib Smell. If we - if I - do not act quickly this situation will soon _escalate_. "

"I know. And I really don't want to fight, not at the moment," Dib said, surprisingly easily cowed. He wasn't entirely sure he cared for the sight, the one thing that set Dib apart from his typically idiotic species was his willingness to fight back. "How bad could it get?"

" _Bad_!" He declared, and had to bite down on his tongue as his third lung gave a pointedly pained throb. "...Our initial acceleration was fast enough to jolt the ship, and I assume we have only picked up speed since then. It will not be long before the structure dissolves entirely, and leaves us-!"

"Stranded in space without any oxygen," Dib said, and at least managed to look appropriately worried. Excellent, maybe the creature had some uses after all. "Great. But we can definitely stop it, yeah?"

"I -" he started, as haughtily as possible given the current humiliating pressure of the situation.

"We," Dib corrected, very firmly, and for the first time he felt something other than disgust at the way the human's eyes flashed behind his absurd glasses. "I don't mean to be cruel, Zim, I genuinely don't. But you've barely recovered from being knocked unconscious, your third - or whatever numbered - lung has just been punctured and you currently seem to be seeping large amounts of orange goo. You need my help."

"I -!" He bristled instinctively, and then actually listened to Dib's words for once and looked down at his body. "Ah, so it really was punctured. _Wonderful_."

"Was that sarcasm? Did you actually learn to use sarcasm, at a time like this?" Dib asked slightly incredulously, but didn't seek to press his advantage any further than that. If anything he actually seemed concerned, which was something strange and new and confusing. "Is your blood orange, then?"

"Sometimes, yes. Depending on the injury!" He yelled shortly, in explanation, and dragged his eyes from his ruined uniform to fix Dib with a weary glance instead. "I do not trust you, Dib Creature. You have been a thorn in my side ever since I landed on your pathetic planet."

"Gee," Dib said, very slowly and not without a little of what he'd earlier termed as sarcasm. "Thanks?"

"But you are the only support I have right now, and I was trained to make the best of any situation no matter how truly dire," he proclaimed, not bothering to point out that it hadn't been a compliment. Dib knew, he always knew. "Help me to survive, Dib Smell, and I will-! Will-! Will maybe refrain from attempting to kill you for a day, or slightly less."

Dib stared at him for a long moment, seeming incredulous… and then, very slowly, started to smile. "Well, who am I to resist when you put it as kindly as that?"

He felt a strange twitching around his mouth, almost as if he was about to give one of those ever so indecent human smiles. He repressed it, immediately. Focused on getting to his feet instead, and ignoring the indecent heat of Dib's body against his.


End file.
